Caleb totally knows how to rock the pocket square.
I feel like this picture rather describes the evening....
The whole shebang.
The cute quaint kiss.
The disturbing and totally scary one!
Good bye 2010!
Showing posts with label New Years. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Years. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Sayonara 2010!
New Year's Eve this year was quite the event. Or at least that's what my head told me the next morning, and in looking through the pictures, my head wasn't lying. It seems to have been controlled insanity, just the way a New Year's Eve should be! Tim was unable to celebrate with us though, as he was stuck working at the restaurant. So off I went to dinner with Julie, Ryan, Nate, Caleb, and Nick. Brown Bottle in Waterloo. Classier than pretty much all of us combined, but saved by the fact that any restaurant in Waterloo is instantly accepting of anyone, or they go bankrupt. As its Julie's utmost fave holiday, it's demanded that we dress up. Which I so totally don't mind, its a reason to be extra pretty! After dinner, we were to make a quick stop at Screaming Eagle, a wannabe/halfsie biker bar where women aren't afraid to show their rack assets, and men have mullets and are missing teeth. It was packed, but we ended up staying the whole night. Here is proof that we know how to start a new year right!
Caleb totally knows how to rock the pocket square.
I feel like this picture rather describes the evening....
The whole shebang.
The cute quaint kiss.
The disturbing and totally scary one!
Caleb totally knows how to rock the pocket square.I feel like this picture rather describes the evening....The whole shebang.The cute quaint kiss.The disturbing and totally scary one!
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Throwback Thursday: Happy New Year 2011!
Remember when you were young and holidays weren't your own to decide? You had to do whatever your parents wanted you to do, which usually coincided with what they were doing? Especially on New Year's Eve. Most years I have to admit, we stayed home as the family, rented a ton of movies, played games, and ate too many appetizery foods. But this year in particular, the one pictured above. My parents dragged us (Tim included, which was at least a decent part of the trip) all the way up to a hotel near Cabella's in Minnesota. With NOTHING else around. With a bunch of their friends and the friends' kids. Mind you, no one my age. While a party of my own friends was happening back in Cedar Falls. Ugh. It was a less than awesome New Years. But it could have been worse. Much much worse. It just didn't seem like it at the time...
What are you kids up to for New Years this year?
Friday, January 8, 2010
Throwback Thursday: New Years 1987!
It's been awhile since I have done a Flashback picture, so I figured this one would mesh nicely with a New Years post. From 1987 to 2009....weird. I thought I might try to squeeze into that frilly navy frock, but alas, it wouldn't have matched my shoes...and mom wasn't willing to pick me up and hold me! So blame her.
New Years Eve went differently than expected to say the least. I spent most of the day on the couch, having done something atrociously horrid to my back (which is slowly morphing into a tailbone issue), but manned up enough to go to my parents for the traditional NYE hors deurvs dinner, which, as always, was fully of sinfully tasty foods.
Followed by a game of Scrabble, where my father spent the length of the game trying to spell Shaqtus. And I was left with the world's WORST set of letters....
Kenya kept trying to get dad to spell "hardboiledeggs" 
And then I bucked it up even more, donned the dress I had spent way too long shopping for (forgive the poorly framed picture) and headed out for NYE festivities...with -1 on the thermometer outside. Strappy shoes and below zero temps do NOT mix....
Happy 2010!
New Years Eve went differently than expected to say the least. I spent most of the day on the couch, having done something atrociously horrid to my back (which is slowly morphing into a tailbone issue), but manned up enough to go to my parents for the traditional NYE hors deurvs dinner, which, as always, was fully of sinfully tasty foods.
Followed by a game of Scrabble, where my father spent the length of the game trying to spell Shaqtus. And I was left with the world's WORST set of letters....
Kenya kept trying to get dad to spell "hardboiledeggs" 
And then I bucked it up even more, donned the dress I had spent way too long shopping for (forgive the poorly framed picture) and headed out for NYE festivities...with -1 on the thermometer outside. Strappy shoes and below zero temps do NOT mix....
Happy 2010!
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Craziest Pancakes.
So we kept being told to make sure we eat the pancakes in Amsterdam. Famous? Tasty? Something of the sort. Before we left, my mom sent us the menu of the Pancake Bakery. We checked it out, thought it looked delicious and decided to try to find it if we had the time.
It took us awhile to figure out how to get there, and then even longer to actually get there, but finally, we arrived! There was a line out the door, but we had nowhere else to be, it being New Years Day and all. We stood, and waited, anxiously looking at the cozy warm tables filled with people and pancakes on the inside!
Then it was our turn to be seated. it was shared seating, meaning you could potentially have to sit with total strangers at your table (totally normal for Europe) but we lucked out and got our six top all to ourselves, with a perfect view of the flame bursting grill.
The restaurant had two cooks and five burners turning out all the pancakes and omelets for the whole place, it was quite the well oiled machine to get all that food cranked out. We didn't even really wait long!
I had ordered the sweet route, the apples, raisins, and marasquin pancake. And this was by no means the sweetest way to go, they had a whole section of pancakes that came with ice cream! On the table, the maple syrup and powdered sugar weren't alone, they even had a carmel sauce for your entree.
Tim went salty with cheese, ham, and mushroom. It's not even possible to explain these pancakes. They were amazing. Nothing I have ever really had before, and I have had a LOT of food. Particularly in the breakfast arena, my favorite array of foods. Its not the typical American fluffy pancake, but more of a crepe in density and thickness, but your toppings are mixed in to the batter during the cooking. They drizzled batter, let it cook a bit, put in some toppings, drizzle more batter, more toppings, more drizzle, and voila! Amazing tastes explode in your mouth!
I'm a total chub-a-lub for talking about food so much. But really, what other reason is there to travel, but to eat? :)
Friday, January 16, 2009
New Years Eve in Amsterdam!
New Years Eve in Amsterdam was, not QUITE as expected, but certainly is a story to be told. I'll edit the day part of it so I can go into the saga that was New Years Eve. Even if you don't read the blog, at least read the craziness that was the leading 2 hours into New Years. INSANE.
We woke up early to go in as a group to the city to Anne Frank's House. Which, I apparently took ZERO pictures at. It's not a huge shocker though, because to be totally honest, I was super disappointed in it. I read the diary when I was only in 6th grade, and became fascinated with the whole story and the war. But seeing the House was a total downer, not in the depressing way, but because it has been so...commercialized? That's not the right term, but the entire thing has been redone and modernized in a way. I doubt any of the walls are actually authentic or anything. It was like seeing any other recreated museum. Sad, really. But seeing the actual diary at the end was pretty intense. That was the only part of the whole thing that made it seem remotely real.
Anyways, after we finished the house, we were split up again, and Tim and I went on a massive hunt for clothes to make me warm. I totally was unprepared for the cold, and knowing I was going to be out until the wee hours of morn made it necessary for warmth. Two pairs of tights (amazing), a pair of hiking socks, and a sweet Amsterdam hat later, I was prepared!
And we headed off for the Rijiks Museum, an art Museum. We passed some cool graffiti and klomppen shops along the way!
Finally we made it to the museum, only to find out that they had just reopened and everyone and their mother wanted to go see the new exhibits. So we stood in line, outside, for over an hour, in the freezing cold and snow. I took at least 100 pictures while we were in line, trying to take my mind off of it, but I will only bore you with two of them. And at least I had a hat! The British man in front of us had bare ears. Poor poor Brit. The first picture is me with my lion love, and the second is one of the entrance gates into the museum, it was really quite gorgeous and massive.
But we finally got in, saw the museum with frozen feet, and it was interesting. Art museums just aren't really our thing. I can't look at a painting for twenty minutes and try to figure out what each brush stroke meant. I frankly don't care. My bad.
After the Rijiks, we went back to the hotel and the "closeby" supermarket, which was really at least a mile away and a gas station has more food than this place did, but we got a small lunch and headed back to the hotel to eat and rest up for the evening ahead!
A rest and a nap later, we figured we should eat before freezing our booties off for the next six hours, so we hit up the hotel buffet downstairs, expensive and not that great, it filled our tummies with warmth.
And then it started....we decided to meet up with Ryan and Kristen at 10ish, and then head down to Dam Square, where apparently it is all the rage to be. We get to the Metro stop and are informed by other kids in our tour group that the trains had stopped at 8. I know I said I wouldn't complain about our tour guide in this, but COME ON, who doesn't tell their tour group that the train stations close at 8! Plus, he never informed us on how to get BACK to the hotel, and we had to read another tour groups poster to figure out there was a free bus at 2am. But anyways, we were pissed. It was 10:30, and cabs were running 100euro ($150) to get to the city. So, we thought the only thing to do was start walking. And thus we did!
It was cold, but the boys had Heinekens, and I was just desperate to get there. We had no idea if we were going in the right direction or not, but just hoped we were. We had walked at least half an hour when finally someone was kind enough to answer our questions if we were headed the right way. They pointed in the direction, and said we would never make it by midnight. We still had 7 kilometers to go. We basically started jogging. Asked another lady about a half mile later, who was on a bicycle, and she basically laughed at us. We were panicking at this point. There were 8 of us jogging/running/PISSED off at our tour guide that he put us in this situation. Totally desperate and nowhere near close at 11:30, we flag down a taxi van just to see how much, he took pity on us since it was so close to midnight, and pretty much the whole city was already there, and gave the rate of 5euros a piece. Totally worth it.
We all hop in the van, still nervous about making it with traffic and all. 11:40ish, we get as far as the taxi can take us, and we basically just start running in the direction we think we should go. We're all screaming Dam Square, trying to get directions, but nobody pays any attention to us. It was like Amazing Race, I swear, just running around, almost in circles. Finally I ask a couple who actually answers me, but also tells me that Dam Square was closed because it was too full. I wanted to cry. I got back to the group, and we decide to get as close as we can anyway. People were packing the streets no matter where we were, fireworks going off mere feet from us (BIG fireworks, totally legal in Amsterdam) being set off by drunks who had no clue what they were doing. We realized we had run totally the wrong way.
By this point we are all sweating and tired and mad and just done. But we keep running until we see the sign that says Dam Square is closed. Then we started jogging. By the time we hit the massive wall of people, we were less than a block from Dam Square. Nothing was going to stop us at this point. We basically just locked up, and pushed forward. We kept pushing until we could really push no more.
And then about a minute and a half later, they started the countdown. We had BARELY made it. By the skin of our teeth made it. We wanted to punch Omar in the throat. People are everywhere, fireworks are everywhere, booze is everywhere. Theres music and dancing and its just crazy. I spent my New Years in Amsterdam.
I called my mom amidst the chaos and it was one of those conversations where she can't understand a word I say, and I have no idea if she's even on the other end of the line. Fireworks were going off, people were screaming, it was crazy.
After the countdown, we knew we had two hours to kill before the first bus left to our hotel, so along with Ryan and Kristen, we just started walking the streets of Amsterdam. Street sellers had suitcases of champagne to sell, one couple was lighting a candle to raise their mini hot air balloon, more fireworks, more booze and singing and dancing. It was just really fun to experience it with that many people.
After awhile we slowly made our way to the bus stop, going back through Dam Square, and the amount of garbage and firework trash was absolutely insane.
This picture doesn't even come close to doing it justice. It was gross the amount of garbage and bottles and who knows what that littered the ground. But we pushed through, Ryan and Kristen needing a snack, we stopped at a French Fry stand and of course, Ryan made good friends with the British guys ahead of us. It seemed to be his gift.
We finally made it to the bus station, and were crazy lucky enough to actually get seats for the trip home. It was packed. But we made it. With one crazy story. No thanks to Omar.
We woke up early to go in as a group to the city to Anne Frank's House. Which, I apparently took ZERO pictures at. It's not a huge shocker though, because to be totally honest, I was super disappointed in it. I read the diary when I was only in 6th grade, and became fascinated with the whole story and the war. But seeing the House was a total downer, not in the depressing way, but because it has been so...commercialized? That's not the right term, but the entire thing has been redone and modernized in a way. I doubt any of the walls are actually authentic or anything. It was like seeing any other recreated museum. Sad, really. But seeing the actual diary at the end was pretty intense. That was the only part of the whole thing that made it seem remotely real.
Anyways, after we finished the house, we were split up again, and Tim and I went on a massive hunt for clothes to make me warm. I totally was unprepared for the cold, and knowing I was going to be out until the wee hours of morn made it necessary for warmth. Two pairs of tights (amazing), a pair of hiking socks, and a sweet Amsterdam hat later, I was prepared!
And we headed off for the Rijiks Museum, an art Museum. We passed some cool graffiti and klomppen shops along the way!
Finally we made it to the museum, only to find out that they had just reopened and everyone and their mother wanted to go see the new exhibits. So we stood in line, outside, for over an hour, in the freezing cold and snow. I took at least 100 pictures while we were in line, trying to take my mind off of it, but I will only bore you with two of them. And at least I had a hat! The British man in front of us had bare ears. Poor poor Brit. The first picture is me with my lion love, and the second is one of the entrance gates into the museum, it was really quite gorgeous and massive.
But we finally got in, saw the museum with frozen feet, and it was interesting. Art museums just aren't really our thing. I can't look at a painting for twenty minutes and try to figure out what each brush stroke meant. I frankly don't care. My bad.
After the Rijiks, we went back to the hotel and the "closeby" supermarket, which was really at least a mile away and a gas station has more food than this place did, but we got a small lunch and headed back to the hotel to eat and rest up for the evening ahead!
A rest and a nap later, we figured we should eat before freezing our booties off for the next six hours, so we hit up the hotel buffet downstairs, expensive and not that great, it filled our tummies with warmth.
And then it started....we decided to meet up with Ryan and Kristen at 10ish, and then head down to Dam Square, where apparently it is all the rage to be. We get to the Metro stop and are informed by other kids in our tour group that the trains had stopped at 8. I know I said I wouldn't complain about our tour guide in this, but COME ON, who doesn't tell their tour group that the train stations close at 8! Plus, he never informed us on how to get BACK to the hotel, and we had to read another tour groups poster to figure out there was a free bus at 2am. But anyways, we were pissed. It was 10:30, and cabs were running 100euro ($150) to get to the city. So, we thought the only thing to do was start walking. And thus we did!
It was cold, but the boys had Heinekens, and I was just desperate to get there. We had no idea if we were going in the right direction or not, but just hoped we were. We had walked at least half an hour when finally someone was kind enough to answer our questions if we were headed the right way. They pointed in the direction, and said we would never make it by midnight. We still had 7 kilometers to go. We basically started jogging. Asked another lady about a half mile later, who was on a bicycle, and she basically laughed at us. We were panicking at this point. There were 8 of us jogging/running/PISSED off at our tour guide that he put us in this situation. Totally desperate and nowhere near close at 11:30, we flag down a taxi van just to see how much, he took pity on us since it was so close to midnight, and pretty much the whole city was already there, and gave the rate of 5euros a piece. Totally worth it.
We all hop in the van, still nervous about making it with traffic and all. 11:40ish, we get as far as the taxi can take us, and we basically just start running in the direction we think we should go. We're all screaming Dam Square, trying to get directions, but nobody pays any attention to us. It was like Amazing Race, I swear, just running around, almost in circles. Finally I ask a couple who actually answers me, but also tells me that Dam Square was closed because it was too full. I wanted to cry. I got back to the group, and we decide to get as close as we can anyway. People were packing the streets no matter where we were, fireworks going off mere feet from us (BIG fireworks, totally legal in Amsterdam) being set off by drunks who had no clue what they were doing. We realized we had run totally the wrong way.
By this point we are all sweating and tired and mad and just done. But we keep running until we see the sign that says Dam Square is closed. Then we started jogging. By the time we hit the massive wall of people, we were less than a block from Dam Square. Nothing was going to stop us at this point. We basically just locked up, and pushed forward. We kept pushing until we could really push no more.
And then about a minute and a half later, they started the countdown. We had BARELY made it. By the skin of our teeth made it. We wanted to punch Omar in the throat. People are everywhere, fireworks are everywhere, booze is everywhere. Theres music and dancing and its just crazy. I spent my New Years in Amsterdam.
I called my mom amidst the chaos and it was one of those conversations where she can't understand a word I say, and I have no idea if she's even on the other end of the line. Fireworks were going off, people were screaming, it was crazy.
After the countdown, we knew we had two hours to kill before the first bus left to our hotel, so along with Ryan and Kristen, we just started walking the streets of Amsterdam. Street sellers had suitcases of champagne to sell, one couple was lighting a candle to raise their mini hot air balloon, more fireworks, more booze and singing and dancing. It was just really fun to experience it with that many people.
After awhile we slowly made our way to the bus stop, going back through Dam Square, and the amount of garbage and firework trash was absolutely insane.
This picture doesn't even come close to doing it justice. It was gross the amount of garbage and bottles and who knows what that littered the ground. But we pushed through, Ryan and Kristen needing a snack, we stopped at a French Fry stand and of course, Ryan made good friends with the British guys ahead of us. It seemed to be his gift. 
We finally made it to the bus station, and were crazy lucky enough to actually get seats for the trip home. It was packed. But we made it. With one crazy story. No thanks to Omar.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Winter Season in Paris and Amsterdam
So, I am recruiting knowledgeable minds! Well, ones that have traveled to Paris and Amsterdam at least.
I've mentioned that Tim and I are heading across the Big Blue this upcoming winter, and I am beginning to surf around for sites to see! It's a ten day trip starting in Amsterdam (including over New Years), heading through Brussels for lunch, and then on to Paris (for our two year anniversary).
Included in our trip:
Notre Dame
Anne Frank's House
Louvre Museum
Seine Cruise
Eiffel Tower
Other than that, we are starting from scratch! If you know of cool museums, funky sites, yummy restaurants, or even just pretty views, I would love to hear them. Load me up with information people! Let me learn from other people's experience. Even if you know of just a really good travel site, that would be sweet.
For those that don't personally know us, we have traveled overseas quite extensively, just not to these locations, so we don't need generic travel info like how to fly and such. Just specific Parisian and Dutch wonder!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)